The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Rural Payments Agency have filed a clean set of accounts for the first time in six years, the National Audit Office confirmed today.
Auditors have urged the Department for Transport to better coordinate procurement of trains and rail infrastructure upgrades after concluding that plans to electrify the Great Western mainline at the...
Labour has proposed the creation of local public accounts committees to monitor the value for money and performance of public services under plans to devolve greater control of spending.
The Office of Rail Regulation has ordered government-owned Network Rail to pay back £53m to the Treasury after failing to meet punctuality targets in the five years between 2009 and 2014.
Whitehall’s grant-making activities are not well co-ordinated and there is no central register of those currently in operation, the National Audit Office has said.
Government changes to the interest rate local authorities pay to borrow from the Public Works Loan Board have become a barrier to councils making decisions to invest in economic infrastructure, the...
Public servants must look beyond national borders and election cycles to meet the challenges of globalisation, the CIPFA conference heard from EY’s Uschi Schreiber.
The chair of the Public Accounts Committee has called for an examination into the future of public audit following the abolition of the Audit Commission.
The austerity that followed the recession only hastened a crisis in public finances that would have happened anyway, polling expert Peter Kellner told the CIPFA conference.
The economic recovery has been led by household consumption but a ‘frothy’ housing market and poor trade and productivity statistics raise questions over long-term sustainability, CIPFA’s annual...
CIPFA president Mike Owen has urged political parties to avoid tempting voters with short-term policies at next May’s general election, but instead plan and budget for the medium to long term.
Labour has pledged to reverse a ‘century of centralisation’ in the control of public spending after backing a review by former Cabinet minister Lord Adonis that calls for more than £30bn to be...
The Treasury should produce and publish an assessment of the long-term affordability of consumer bills across all utility sectors, the Public Accounts Committee said today.
Long-term public spending plans are needed to help integrate local service provision, a senior figure involved in implementing the coalition’s flagship Community Budgets programme has said.
All families should be given government help towards their childcare costs in a bid to encourage more mothers back to work, according to recommendations from the Institute for Public Policy Research.
There is public support for a merger of income tax and National Insurance to end the ‘misleading’ distinction between the rates, accountants PwC have found.
Councils in England face a £5.8bn funding gap over the next two years, and spending on adult social will tip councils into financial crisis if reforms are not successful, the Local Government...
The National Audit Office has criticised the government for awarding £16.6bn worth of contracts for eight renewable energy generation projects without a competition.
The Department for Work and Pensions has been told by auditors that it must take action to better understand why there are overpayments in some welfare benefits after its accounts were qualified for...
CIPFA will be hosting an event at its Mansell Street offices on 3 November to mark 40 years since the publication of the Layfield report into local government finance, including contributions from...
The Treasury is to limit the loan-to-income ratio of mortgages underwritten by the government’s Help to Buy scheme at 4.5:1 after the Bank of England announced restrictions on the use of these loans...
The Public Accounts Committee has called on the government to do more to justify the £100bn spent on tax breaks every year after warning that the poorly-managed system of reliefs created...
More than £21.2bn of public spending went on contracts to 20 large outsourcing firms in 2012 and 2013, an analysis of 38 million government transactions by the Institute for Government has found.
MPs will today vote on Labour’s proposal to expand the role of the Office for Budget Responsibility to audit all major parties’ spending pledges ahead of the next election.